Currently, parts are generally located on an aircraft manually (e.g., by a person physically reading the identification number directly off of the part itself). This process is tedious and very time consuming. There is no automated way of accurately determining the location of a part on an aircraft that will help improve production efficiency.
It should be noted that global Positional System (GPS) based location systems are not suitable for an accurate positioning of objects in an indoor environment, such as in an aircraft cabin. Many positioning systems for indoor applications that are being developed rely on a Wi-Fi infrastructure and a passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. Most of the traditional methods employ triangulation of the radio frequency (RF) parameters, such as receive signal strength indicator (RSSI), time difference of arrival (TDOA), and angle of arrival (AOA). On an aircraft, the constraints of weight restrictions and the RF propagation conditions being less than benign make these traditional methods unsuitable to locate parts.
As such, there is a need for an improved method to locate parts on an aircraft.